The body of Casey Kasem, the legendary radio personality who died in June, has been flown to a funeral home in Canada, a Washington state
funeral home official told The Canadian Press Monday.
Kasem family sources told TMZ last week that the entertainer's remains were missing and that his wife, Jean Kasem, may have taken the body from Gaffney Funeral Home in Tacoma before a judge could order an autopsy.
"The autopsy is crucial to an ongoing criminal investigation targeting Jean," the celebrity gossip site reported. "The Santa Monica PD is looking into elder abuse allegations . . . that Jean took Casey on a wild, week-long multi-state car ride which caused him to develop bed sores that got infected and contributed to his death."
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But Corey Gaffney, the president of Gaffney Funeral Home, told The Canadian Press that Kasem's remains were transported to Montreal and that his body was never missing.
"What we did was made sure that Casey got to the airport. We released custody of Casey to the airline," Gaffney told The Canadian Press. "The airline signed for that and acknowledged that and then at that point we returned to our office, tracked his flight to Montreal, confirmed that he had arrived, reported that to Mrs. Kasem. When he landed in Montreal, I ceased being the funeral director in charge."
Kasem's death certificate, filed on July 15, lists the Urgel Bourgie funeral home in Montreal as the place of disposition.
Urgel Bourgie said over the weekend it had no record of Kasem at the facility, but The Press noted that Canada's Privacy Act generally prohibits funeral homes from releasing such information.
Kasem, 82, died in June from Lewy body dementia, a malady with symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. The creator of the long-running "American Top 40" syndicated radio show had been the focus of an intense family battle between Jean Kasem and the entertainer's adult children from his first marriage.
The children charged last year that the Jean Kasem denied them access to their father while his health deteriorated. After a series of court hearings, a Los Angeles judge ultimately gave the Kasem children permission to withhold food, hydration, and their father's usual medication as they chose comfort-oriented, end-of-life care at a Washington state hospital.
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